First, if you did that you are are way above good, a nearly great parent...if they understood [or come to understand, since I don't know ages/maturity] it, you are a great parent period.ParanoiA wrote:I said almost exactly that to my wife and children. More along the lines of losing the house because I was too used to being "processed" and depending on some weird idea of infinite protection by laws (surely the government wouldn't let them screw me attitude). That we're losing our house because we compared ourselves to others and thought "well everybody else has multiple credit cards, car payments and fancy cell phones so..."Vraith wrote:I bet you'd be hard pressed to find a parent willing to say "we're losing the house because I was too greedy/too lazy/too desperate to keep up with the neighbors/too stupid to figure out/whatever...that the mortgage was a lie...it is my fault, and son/daughter, the lesson here is read the fine print, if you don't understand it, find someone who does; and cash on hand and an 8 year old car is more important than a new SUV with a pile of debt.
I think we've done a good job of exposing our kids to our economic hardships, and how we brought most of them on ourselves and our unrealistic thinking and rationalizing the short term at the expense of the long term, without traumatizing them or growing them up too soon.
I can't say I agree with ya Vraith. Hardship has taught me a lot. I would say premature hardship on a 14 year old is more likely to keep them from learning how to be creative and possibly some level of happiness. But I think they learn much from it, regardless.
On hardship: I'm not sure the lines [which I drew harshly and without explanation] are clear, and the line moves depending on age vs. situation to be dealt with. A challenging situation can be good. There is a qualitative difference between "face this, learn from it" and "do this now, or you and your family will die."
